In 1927, five years after the Cradle Mountain and the Lake St Clair Reserves were created, the government appointed two voluntary groups to provide advice to the Scenery Preservation Board on their management. These were the Cradle Mountain Reserve Board and the National Park Board.

Around 1900, the Mersey Forth high country was remote and largely unknown. Yet within a generation it was covered in an extensive network of tracks and huts and sustained a new industry that delivered great wealth to adjacent rural regions. But fast forward two more generations to the mid 1950s and this new industry had collapsed. Men walked away abandoning their huts and tracks some never to return. What was this industry, what prompted its rapid growth and what led to its demise?